Category Archives: International Monetary Fund

Not such a NYSE day…

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Move over Greece and figure it out already. The outage glitch at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is now taking center stage. The trouble is believed to have started Tuesday night when an upgrade was in progress. Problem is, by 7:00 am the next morning the issues seem to have not been resolved and traders were having difficulty connecting. At 11:00 am a warning was issued that the tech problems were being investigated. But, by 11:32 am, NYSE figured it would be a good time to halt trading. Good thing trading was able to shift seamlessly to other exchanges, as the US enjoys a system where there’s a lot of overlap in its financial markets. (Take that IMF: see below). As for NYSE, trading transferred to a back-up unit in New Jersey. So don’t bother making fun of anybody from there for a really long time. However, it still didn’t go unnoticed that it was the biggest outage in two years, that happened to coincide with technical glitches by United Airlines and the Wall Street Journal. Some suspect that it was no coincidence that all three of those systems experienced glitches. Even FBI Director James Comey said, “We’re not big believers in coincidence either. We want to dig into that part.” Although, at this point in time there’s no way to know what caused the glitches and if they’re at all related.

Speaking of glitches…

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Well it’s not really a glitch…maybe just a hiccup – a summer hiccup. The Labor Department released its numbers and well, it’s sort of a bummer. Turns out that applications for jobless benefits rose this week by 15,000 applicants to a total of 297,000 people. That is the highest number it’s been since February, when that awful figure hit a very unpleasant 327,000. However, there is a silver lining here, I kid you not. Most of those applications came from Michigan and Ohio and are likely due to auto-plant shutdowns who are in the midst of retooling its models for the next year. At least that’s what the experts think and well, they’re probably right. Anyways, it’s a lot more reassuring than any other reason experts can think of. As it stands, 2.33 million people are receiving jobless benefits (I’m pretty sure there’s an oxymoron somewhere in there), and while that figure may seem rather high, it is still 10% less than last year at this time. Besides, last week unemployment hit a seven year low and the number of folks applying for jobless benefits on a weekly basis has remained under 300.000 for over four months. All the more reason to breathe a sigh of relief. Sort of.

Blame it on the United States, why don’t you…

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Maybe they’re just bitter because the American Women’s Soccer team won the World Cup Finals, but according to the International Monetary Fund, the United States is to blame because the rest of he world is experiencing slow growth. The IMF is predicting that the world’s growth will grow at a pace of 3.3%, .2% less than what it predicted back in April. And that, my friends, is what you call a downgrade. That is apparently the slowest growth pace since 2009, when there was a recession in effect and the economy didn’t grow but, in fact, shrank. Because the United States economy is apparently the biggest one in the world, and because we had a particularly frightful winter, fiscally speaking, the economy shrank .2% between January and March. When the the U.S economy shrinks, it drags down the rest of the world. So they say. Meanwhile, Greece’s inability to balance its books has been dominating financial news, yet its troubles are predicted to have a limited impact on the rest of the world. Even China, which happens to have a gargantuan economy, is walking away unscathed despite the fact that its stock market plunged. According to Mr. pish-posh IMF research chief Olivier Blanchard, “We don’t see it as a major macroeconomic issue.” Whatever.